Focus on Arabs and Islam

It was an all too familiar story. A challenging and informative program on the Middle East finally becomes available to a national television audience, but programming executives in the nation's financial and political capitals find a way to keep it off the air.

The program this time was a special on Israel and the Palestinians from the producers of Flashpoint, PBS' answer to the newspapers' Op-Ed page. It featured three films, two told from Israeli perspectives and the third, entitled "Occupied Palestine" and about equal in length to the other two combined, from a Palestinian point of view. To ensure the program's objectivity, the producers hit upon the happy idea of inviting two young, articulate spokesmen, one from each side, to comment on the films: Ehud Olmert of the Israeli Knesset (where he votes with the right wing Likud bloc) and Yale-educated Palestinian Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University.

Flashpoint. Israel and the Palestinians aired in prime time over many PBS stations on Wednesday, April 9. The reviews were mildly favorable to enthusiastic. The film's potential impact on American perceptions was mitigated, however, by the fact that two PBS "flagship" stations, WNET in New York and WETA in Washington, D.C., decided not to broadcast the program. Sixteen other PBS stations around the nation later followed suit. (WETA, which had cited its obligation to "provide up to date productions of high quality" in rejecting the program, rebroadcast for about the twentieth time the nature film Lions of Etosha instead.)

The refusals of WNET and WETA, despite strong urgings from the American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee (ADC), is evidence that obstacles continue to stand in the way of Arab Americans getting their views heard in the public arena. ADC's efforts began in February after several staff members saw "Occupied Palestine" at a screening given by David Koff, the film's producer. Koff had approached ADC and other groups interested in the Israel/Palestine question in an effort to publicize the film. In mid February ADC issued an Action Alert telling members about Flashpoint and urging them to contact their local PBS stations to express interest in the program. ADC was particularly hopeful about the airing of "Occupied Palestine," which it said promised to be "an event unprecedented in the history of American television. No other television presentation has told the story of the Palestinian tragedy and struggle as clearly or as powerfully."

ADC's director of legal services, Albert Mokhiber, then wrote to WETA Executive Vice President Gerald Slater and expressed his support for a local showing of the special. Slater replied that WETA would not air Flashpoint because "all three films are inferior to anything we have aired previously." In his reply to Mokhiber, Slater also characterized "Occupied Palestine" as ,'marred by severe distortions of history and content," supporting his claim with several detailed arguments which, in the words of an ADC staffer, "could have come out of an AIPAC primer." (Others who saw the film, including Edward Walsh, who previewed the program for the Washington Post, found both Slater's judgment of the program and his rationale for not airing it hard to accept.)

Slater's objections to Flashpoint seem even less convincing in light of what a top PBS official had to say about the special. Barry Chase, PBS vice president for news and public affairs programming, tried to head off the scramble by some stations to cave in to pressure from groups protesting the special. In a telex sent April 3 to all PBS stations, Chase said:

The film segments chosen by the producers ... were culled from dozens of advocacy films and selected on the advice of representatives entitled to speak for the contending points of view. We know of no other material and objecting groups have thus far failed to identify any which would be more suitable for the purpose of the broadcast. Nor has any objecting party identified alternative material which would be more "timely" in terms of the issue whose land is it? that lies at the heart of the "Flashpoint" presentation.

Chase went on to add that there were only two "logically consistent" grounds for objecting to the special:

One is that the entire concept of "free speech television," in which a small portion of the PBS schedule provides a format for the unvarnished expression of partisan views, is unworthy even of that small portion of the schedule. The other is that the expression of such views because they may be unpopular, discomforting, distorting or unconventional should not be even an experimental part of public television's business.

In an April 7 press release, ADC noted that Chase's telex confirmed ADC's view that WETA and WNET "have chosen to deny their viewers a chance to view and evaluate Flashpoint for themselves." (Thanks in part to ADC's efforts, a smaller Washington PBS station, Howard University's WHMM, carried the program for Capital Area viewers.)

Anthony B. Toth, of Arlington, Virginia, is a freelance writer specializing in US relations with the Middle East.

Focus on Israel and Jews

Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who seems to have become America's "favorite Israeli politician," was the special guest of U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz at a formal luncheon held in his honor at the State Department April 1. Shultz praised Peres for his "far sighted leadership ... in tackling Israel's economic problems," and said that "History shows us that nations which are economically successful are best equipped to resolve their differences with their neighbors."

(Jerusalem Post Washington Correspondent Wolf Blitzer, covering the event for the Washington Jewish Week, proclaimed Shultz "the most pro Israeli secretary of state ever," with Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig his only serious "competitors for the title.")

Just a few days after Peres left Washington for Israel, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Washington's foremost pro Israel lobbying group, held its 27th Annual Policy Convention in the nation's capital. In his "State of AIPAC" address, Executive Director Thomas Dine told the over 1200 delegates present: "We are in the midst of a revolution that is raising the U.S. Israel relationship to new heights. We're building a 'new' AIPAC which still recognizes Congress as our most reliable and essential friend, but one which also works closely with the executive branch."

It was partly because of Dine's interest in developing the "new AIPAC" that the organization decided not to lobby against the Administration's proposal to sell $354 million worth of arms to Saudi Arabia. Dine told the Jewish Week's Lisa Schneider that 22 minutes after the House of Representatives voted against giving $100 million in aid to the Nicaraguan contras, he gave Secretary Shultz the "good news" that AIPAC would not fight against this Saudi arms sale.

But not everyone at the AIPAC convention was as pleased as Shultz with Dine's "news." Ruth Popkin (president of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization) said she intended to keep on fighting. So too appeared Senator Edward Kennedy (D MA), who told AIPAC delegates that "the last thing America needed [in the Middle East] was a weapon sale of the month mentality." (AIPAC just might wind up having its cake and eating it too. Led by Kennedy and other traditional pro Israel Members of Congress like Senator Alan Cranston (D CA), the arms sale still stands a chance of being defeated on the floors of the House and Senate. At the same time, AIPAC has certainly scored some points with the Administration by announcing that it would not intervene in upcoming Congressional battles over the sale.)

The AIPAC convention was not the "only Jewish conference in town" in the last few weeks. Some 500 delegates assembled in Washington last week for the biennial convention of the American Jewish Congress (AJC). High points of the conference were an opening address by Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg and a debate over the question of Jewish Political Action Committees (PACs) dedicated solely to supporting pro Israel political candidates. Hertzberg, a professor of religion at Dartmouth and a past president of the AJC, discussed the unique role of Jews in America, maintaining that "Jews remain today the only group of 'haves' devoted not to narrow self interest but to social justice." In the debate on pro Israeli PACs, Representafive Barney Frank (D MA) argued against Jews giving money to politicians just because they are "strong on Israel." He urged Jews not to support right wingers who oppose abortion and equal rights for women, but favor prayer in the schools because they think "this is a Christian nation." Columnist Ben Wattenberg, on the other hand, said Israel's security depended on a powerful non isolationist America and that it was "hypocritical" to have "two foreign policies dovish everywhere but hawkish on Israel."

While AIPAC and the AJC were holding their respective conventions, over 100 Jews, Palestinians and their guests were gathering together in a Silver Spring, Maryland home for Washington's Fourth Annual Jewish Palestinian Friendship Dinner, sponsored by Washington Area Jews for an IsraeliPalestinian Peace (WAJIPP) and several local Palestinians. Representatives from 14 Jewish, Arab and Christian groups attended, as did four State Department officials and Jawad George, a member of the Palestine National Council the PLO's "parliament in exile."

After helping themselves to a delicious array of various Middle Eastern dishes, everyone crowded into the living room to listen to short speeches by Israeli Civil Liberties Lawyer Avigdor Feldman, Khalil Jahshan of the Palestine Research and Educational Center, and "Special Guests" Hanna Seniora and Uri Avnery. (Seniora, an East Jerusalem newspaper editor given the stamp of approval by both Israel and the PLO, and Avnery, a former member of the Israeli Knesset, were touring the East Coast under the joint sponsorship of the America Israel Council for Israeli Palestinian Peace and the Palestine Human Rights Campaign.) Seniora said it was great to see Jews and Palestinians socializing but that "it would be even even better if they got together to lobby for a hearing on Capitol Hill to investigate the living conditions of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza." WAJIPP member Norbert Hornstein, a Linguistics professor at the University of Maryland, expressed the sentiments of the attendees in his response to Seniora's suggestion: "A terrific idea. I'm ready to go!"

—Andrea Barron

Andrea Barron, a PhD Candidate in International Relations at the American University in Washington, D.C., is active in Washington Area Jews for an Israeli Palestinian Peace and writes frequently about the Middle East.